This video is brought to you by Raycon. Mother's Day is right around the corner and here's a chance to give mom something that'll fit right into her everyday routine. The essential open earbuds. Get 15% off when you visit by bracon.com/skillup open. Click now to grab a pair or stick around to the end of the video to learn more. Gamers, tell you what, this ended up being a much bigger news week than I was expecting. I mean, there isn't too much going on in terms of big releases right now, though. Pragmata is certainly nothing to sneeze at. More on that later, but outside of that, it all seemed quiet on the Western front. Then out of nowhere, Rockstar gets hacked and ends up making money out of it somehow.

Rumors leaked that Game Pass is getting a price cut and rumors abound that Disney are making an extraction shooter featuring actual Disney characters. Soon you'll be able to teabag the corpse of Mickey Mouse while trashalking him over prox chat. At least I hope so. It's possible I am getting carried away by imagining the possibilities. Man, with so many big surprises and so much uncertainty, it's nice to know there's at least one thing we can still rely on in 2026. Bethesda releasing broken video games. Ah, Starfield. This was meant to be your big red. Like when your bald uncle goes to Turkey for a holiday and comes back 6 weeks later with a full head of hair. Starfield's PS5 release

date timed with the arrival of a paid DLC and a massive free update was meant to be the moment that made Starfield so good and so popular that it was crashing storefronts. Instead, it's crashing consoles. This is true, by the way. Soon after the game launched on PS5, players began taking to Reddit and other platforms complaining about regular crashes on both the base and pro PS5s. One Reddit user said, quote, "It's really bad. First 20 hours were fine. Now I'm crashing once every 20 minutes on average if I'm exploring on a planet.

Literally just walking. No scanner, no running, no vehicle, no boosting, no combat, just walking, and the game freezes and I have to exit the game." End quote. And this was far from the only person saying this. Another one said, quote, "It crashes every 10 to 20 minutes for me regardless of what I'm doing. Started once I hit the 20-ish hour mark. Doesn't matter what I'm doing either." End quote. There are hundreds of posts like this, so it's obviously a widespread issue affecting multiple people. And it's kind of crazy. Like, just take a step back and think about the last time a major AAA studio released a game only to have it

regularly crashing to the point where scores of people cannot play it. I mean, it does happen, but it's an exceedingly rare occurrence. And yet, it seems to happen every single time Bethesda release a new product. And this isn't even a new product. Like, it's a port of a three-year-old game. And it's also not some niche issue affecting certain PC GPUs or whatever. like it's the PS5. It's like the de facto console of this present generation. Don't worry though because Bethesda are on the case and they will get to the bottom of the matter soonish sort of when they feel like it maybe. To quote their official Twitter thread,

quote, "Thanks for sharing your adventures across the settled systems this weekend. We've loved reading them. We're aware of some reported PS5 crashing issues and have narrowed them down to a small number of causes. We're addressing them in a hot fix we're aiming to release this week. thanks for flagging and we'll keep you posted." End quote. So yeah, if you can't play that new video game that you just bought, which is actually a port of a game released three years ago, don't worry. You will be able to play it at some undisclosed point in the future. Remember to say thank you when that patch arrives. Actually, a quick update on this that just came in as we were finalizing this script. Bethesda rolled out that hot fix, but it only fixed

issues on the PS5 Pro, and the issue still remains on base PS5s. Ah, Bethesda. Bethesda never changes. So, while Bethesda's developers are hopefully working to fix Starfield's bugs, Microsoft's beam counters are probably a little more worried about how Starfield is actually selling. And if reporting is accurate, then they have a lot to be worried about. While Microsoft hasn't released any official sales data, analytics firm Alana has done their own analysis, and they report that Starfield has sold an estimated 140,000 copies on PS5 the week after its launch. That is absolutely abysmal for a port of a flagship Bethesda title, their first new IP in 25 years. You might say, "Well, a port is a port. You know, the original

game released 3 years ago, so you can't expect much in the way of hype or sales." Well, no. That claim does not stand up to scrutiny. As IGN pointed out in their coverage, Forza Horizon 5 released on the PS5 last year and has since sold 5.7 million copies on just the PS5. And that's a port of a game that was released 3 and 1/2 years ago. When a game is good, people will buy ports of it years later. And no company knows this better than Bethesda because a majority of their business model is just porting and reporting Skyrim every few years. Hey, speaking of business models, Game Pass, yeah, that's a segue.

Let's go with that. Right now, Xbox find themselves in a bit of a tight spot since they seem to be making all the wrong moves when it comes to console and Game Pass pricing is a challenge that new Xbox boss Asharma seems to be tackling headon. If recent reports from The Verge and Windows Central are accurate, it's no secret that Game Pass isn't what it used to be. It was once remarked as one of the best deals in gaming, offering a huge catalog of both classic and newly releasleased titles for a low blanket price. But that more or less came to an end in October of last year when Game Pass got an overhaul, splitting up its features into new tiers and seeing a drastic price

hike with the Ultimate Tier, the tier that offers day one access to new release titles, rising by 50% up to $30 US. Set against this backdrop this week, The Verge obtained an internal memo from Sharma that reads, quote, Game Pass is central to gaming value on Xbox. It's also clear that the current model isn't the final one. Shortterm, Game Pass has become too expensive for players, so we need a better value equation. Long-term, we will evolve Game Pass into a more flexible system, which will take time to test and learn around. End quote. Verge reporter Tom Warren also notes that Sharma references all the speculation about potential Game Pass pricing changes, saying that she'll speak more

about the subject with employees in the next week. This follows comments from Jez Cordon of Windows Central, who remarked on a live stream after the Game Pass Ultimate price increase. quote, "It'll be interesting to see if they take Call of Duty out of Game Pass this year, which is a possibility from what I've heard. I think one of the reasons they've had to do this increase in Game Pass Ultimate price is because of Call of Duty. Game Pass has disrupted Call of Duty's business model in a pretty negative way." End quote. The impact was also corroborated by a Bloomberg report around the same time as these price changes where it was said that Activision Blizzard had reportedly lost over $300 million in Call of Duty

revenue by putting it on Game Pass. On the face of it, some changes to Game Pass seem like a no-brainer really. And it's good that Asher is looking to make quick changes here since it would be a win not only for her as a newly arrived leader of Xbox, but also for the people who once relied on Game Pass as their main means of getting access to firstparty AAA releases or discovering new AAA or indie games. I do have lickering questions about the financial viability of a cheap subscription service that's giving you access to games that cost like $200 million to make, but those are problems for Microsoft to solve, not us. The number that hangs over everything right now is $30 a month for Ultimate. And that [__]

just doesn't make sense on any level. So, if Ash can do something about that, then I think people are going to be pretty happy. Hey, here's a particularly cursed headline. Did you hear that Disney is planning to make an extraction shooter? This news comes courtesy of Bloomberg and as part of a larger report detailing the struggles that Epic Games is currently facing in light of declining Fortnite engagement. Speaking of eight current and former employees, Bloomberg first provided context behind several of Epic's latest projects, including the recently shuttered Fortnite Ballistic, Fortnite Festival, Battle Stage, and Rocket Racing modes.

Sources suggested these projects, among others, were released well before they were ready, describing them as quote version 0.5, end quote, and highlighting how the company often chased quote popular trends or business whims end quote. And yeah, I think that was fairly obvious to anyone who's even half been paying attention to Fortnite's updates. Epic has constantly been trying to work other genres into Fortnite to cement it as the everything game, overlooking the fact that most kids probably don't care about tactical shooters or rhythm games or cart races without Nintendo characters in them. Anyway, the report would go to specifically highlight another one of these halfbaked projects,

the AI powered Darth Vader thing that was kind of funny until it wasn't with Bloomberg sources saying it was quote developed on a condensed timeline riddled with bugs at release and didn't meaningfully increase Fortnite engagement. End quote. Hard to believe that Darth Vader dropping Fbombs didn't move the needle in 2025, but the kids are hard to please, it seems. So, they're throwing a lot at Fortnite, and none of it is sticking. And so, they've got a new plan in mind, making a game that will milk the hell out of Disney's IP. Bloomberg reports that Epic is on track to launch the first of three planned Disney games in November of this year. That's according to four current and former employees. What's the first

game, you ask? Well, apparently, it's an extraction shooter akin to Ark Raiders, but with Disney characters. I'll be honest, I am not sure how much interest the Fortnite or Disney demographic has in niche unforgiving genres like this. On the other hand, I do expect the clips that will come out of a game like this to be very amusing to say the least. So, I say go for it, Fortnite, please. Godspeed. Bloomberg says that a number of internal reviewers have already gotten their hands on the game and they have quote expressed concerns that the game mechanics are not very original, but some of the employees are optimistic

that Epic will get it right by launch date. End quote. Oof. As mentioned, there are also two more Disney games in the works, though not quite as far along by the sounds of it. One of which received quote middling internal reviews, end quote, with resources for the third reportedly reallocated to the other two projects after reports that Disney was quote disappointed with Epic's release timeline. End quote. That timeline no doubt impacted by the recent layoffs, which according to this report impacted several employees working on these titles. So yeah, [__] is pretty bleak for both Fortnite and Disney, it seems. But hey, it could be worse. They could have got hacked. That's what happened to Rockstar just this week. The

second hack after a similar data breach back in 2022 that saw indevelopment footage of GTA 6 leaked to the public. On October 11th, a hacker collective known as Shiny Hunters announced that it had compromised Rockstar games via their analytics platform Anodot before leaking various financial info and posting a ransom note threatening more leaks if Rockstar didn't pay up. Rockstar themselves confirmed that the breach was real, but were unshaken saying in a statement, quote, "We can confirm that a limited amount of non-material company information was accessed in connection with a third party data breach. this incident has no impact on our organization or our players." End quote.

Refusing to pay the ransom, the hackers then made good on their promise to release the stolen material. Only their plan kind of backfired when it was revealed that GTA Online is making like a million bucks a week and the stock market really liked hearing that news. So, the Take 2 share price instantly shot up 5%. It was the first instance I can think of where a malicious hack ended up making money for the company that was hacked. I'm Ben Ubisoft are hoping they get hacked real soon because have you seen their share price lately? Yesesh. A quick lightning round to finish off now. One bombshell that dropped this week was that Bloodborne is getting an animated film adaptation.

This comes courtesy of Variety who say it'll be co-inanced by Sony Pictures along with Lyrical Media, who interestingly enough just recently spun up their own indie games label. The film will be co-produced by PlayStation Productions, Lyrical Animation, and one Shawn McLolen, better known as YouTuber Jack SeptiCai. Only other thing we know is that it'll be an R-rated thing apparently. And I mean, yeah, you'd certainly hope so. A lot writing on this one, and I really hope this comes to fruition since Bloodborne fans have been starving for some time now. We really did get a Bloodborne movie before getting a 60fps update. Jesus Christ.

Speaking of adaptations, there was a 90 set operating systembased horror game we spotlighted in our Put this on your radar segment some time ago called Home Safety Hotline, and it did so well for itself on release that it too is getting a film adaptation. According to the Hollywood Reporter, it's being directed by Michael Matthews, whose last movie was the well-received Netflix flick Love and Monsters. This actually follows a trend of indie games being picked up for their adaptations in the last few years, including the likes of Dredge, which is still in production, Markiplier's Iron Long movie, which released just a little while ago, and more recently Exit 8, which has been met with quite a bit of

praise. So, yeah, lots of exciting stuff going on in the world of video game adaptations right now, except for the Mario Galaxy movie. That [__] was straight ass. Psychological horror game/dating sim Doyoki Literature Club has been pulled from the Google Play Store for its quote depiction of sensitive themes end quote. According to game creator Don Salvado and publisher Serenity Forge, they issued a joint statement on Blue Sky before announcing that Google took down the game on April 8th before saying quote their explanation is that the game's content violates their terms of service in its depiction of sensitive themes. DDLC is widely celebrated for portraying mental health in a way that meaningfully connects deeply with players around the

world, helping them feel heard, understood, and less lonely on their journey. End quote. Salvado and Serenity Forge assured us that they are working quote to find a path for getting the DLC reinstated on the Google Play Store end quote but are also exploring quote options for alternative methods of distribution on Android devices end quote. Godzilla Games, developer of Sci-Fi Battle Royale shooter Off the Grid have come under fire recently after reports that the studio has for months now failed to pay its employees and or contractors. This was shared on LinkedIn by a number of current and former employees who were affected by this, including former talent acquisition lead Anna Savina, who writes, quote, I

dedicated three years of my professional life to Godzilla Games. Today, I'm forced to face a significant outstanding debt that covers several months of my professional life. End quote. Before highlighting that some staff are experiencing quote, significant salary delays with no clear timeline. End quote. Godzilla's current senior VFX animator Paul Kmer supported these claims, saying, quote, Godzilla Games has not paid its employees for many months, but it still expects them to work. I've personally not been paid since October 2025. Some have had their pay delayed even longer. End quote. Even more damning, this has been backed up by multiple other staff, including one QA worker who wrote, quote, same here.

Working there almost a year now, and last salary I got was in September. End quote. And a senior concept artist who says, quote, "The same here, but after more than 5 years of working at the company, they now owe me 5 months worth of salary." End quote. Studio CEO Vlad Kolov has since responded to these accusations in a lengthy Twitter post saying, quote, "Yes, we are optimizing costs like every company in gaming, crypto, and tech is doing right now. We've been doing this for over a year. To not disrupt company operations, some payments may be scheduled in a way that works for the company's cash flow, not always for everyone individually. That's the reality of the world we live in."

End quote. Huh, interesting take. I wonder if the staff or contractors, banks, or landlords agree when it comes time to pay mortgages or rent. Does the local supermarket accept this is the reality of the world we live in when trying to buy groceries? I suspect not. No word yet on what the potential resolution for this might be, but we have reached out to them for comment. We will let you know if we hear back. Coming to the tail end of it now, there were a couple of cool studio formations of sorts this week. The first was Nova Assembly labeled as an alliance between five independent studios who will continue to make their own games but

share knowledge and resources. Those studios include VA games, mobile developer Game Garden, and Unfrozen, the developer behind the upcoming Heroes of Might and Magic Olden era, published by Ubisoft, and strategy game specialist Hooded Horse. You've also got Weebi, who's currently working on the platform The Eternal Life of Goldman, which is looking fantastic, by the way. And finally, SadCat Studios, the guys behind the atmospheric cyberpunk platformer replaced, which released just this week, boasting to their brand spanking new website an open letter from Nova Assembly reads, quote, "We believe this is the only way we can truly thrive. If one team just launched a successful game

while others need financial backing, we can resolve the matter internally and avoid making ruinous compromises. If a team requires a specialist with a specific skill set to tackle a particular challenge, it's far more sensible to temporarily bring in someone from another team rather than scrambling around for outside assistance. If a team has developed a flexible dialogue editor or devised a clever process or optimization, everyone should be able to benefit." End quote. Honestly, this is pretty damn cool. absolutely love to see indie studios coming together and supporting each other like this, finding ways to be more efficient and creative.

It's actually the way that Kepler Interactive was formed and that's gone on to become one of the most successful small scale publishers of the past decade. So, here's hoping Nova Assembly is able to capture some of the same magic. On the topic of indies helping out indies, Landfall, the studio behind Peak and Another Crabs Treasure, have revealed a new publishing label and indie investment fund that they're giving the most wonderfully tongue-in-cheek name you can imagine, Evil Landfall. Nice one. Wouldn't expect anything less from these guys. The company has long published its own projects, and this new team will continue that by only offering its services to Landfall's own games while offering external developers advice and

funding to help with their self-published projects. Over on their website, they've already revealed 10 games that they're involved in, including already released games like Rogike Shooter Sulfur, Webbed, and Isopod from Aussie Studio Spug, as well as indevelopment projects like physics-based fishing game How to Fish. Evil Landfall CEO Kirsten Lee Nadu said the projects that they want to partner with are the ones that were closely aligned with the kind of games Landfall already makes. Saying quote, "We feel like we already have an audience established that likes games to play with friends, silly physics-based projects. We look for games in this realm because we think that if we boost them to our audience, then there's an

added benefit there." End quote. And yeah, that totally makes sense. So game developers, if you're listening and your project fits the bill, make sure you reach out to them. Finally, a headline we regrettably didn't have time to cover last week was that Hazelite announced that it sold a whopping 50 million copies across its three titles. They posted a breakdown on Twitter that indicates A Way Out sold 13 million units. It Takes 2 sold the lion share at 30 million units and Split Fiction has already sold through 7 million units. An absolutely incredible result and proved positive that there's still plenty of demand for couch co-op experiences.

Hazite ended the post with a tease of their next title, saying, quote, "Your love and support keeps us going, and we can't wait to show you our fourth game, Winky Face." End quote. Can't wait to see what Ferris and his team have got cooking. So, what got announced or delayed last week? Well, as we mentioned last week, the Triple Eye Initiative showcase happened, which featured a few new title reveals like Prove Your Human, the new one from 10,00 Resist developer, as well as a brand new game in the Don't Starve Survival series called Don't Starve Elsewhere. A new game in the Tempam universe was also announced called Tempteam Pioneers, a co-op survival action game. There were 37 other trailers crammed into that

showcase, though a lot of them were release date announcements for games that are coming out within the next month. So, rest assured, we'll shout them out in the release date segments as and when they come up. Outside of the Triple Eye Initiative, however, a couple of very intriguing announcements. The first was Metro 2039, a new game in the very bleak but very good Eastern European FPS series. They showed off a CGI trailer, some developer commentary, and a brief gameplay clip. Author Dmitri Glokovski is once again on board for this one with a new story featuring a new protagonist called the stranger who's going back into the metro after a long period away. The Ukrainian team at

4 Games made it extremely clear that they are not playing around with the war and post-apocalyptic themes in this entry, saying in the reveal, quote, "War is our reality, and our message has shifted to be about the consequences, the cost of silence, the horrors of tyranny, and the price of freedom." End quote. This one's slated for a northern hemisphere winter release, so around the end of the year for PC, Xbox, and PS5. Something a bit more lighthearted now. Titanium Court is a game we've mentioned a few times on the show, mainly on account of it taking out both the major prize and the innovation award at this year's Independent Games Festival before

even being released or even officially announced at the time of its nomination. Publisher Fellow Traveler announced a release date for this one and it's coming out next week, Thursday, April 23rd. Really interesting to watch so many games be so cautious with their release dates this year to make sure they could be as safe as they can be. Anyway, the team here were big fans of the preview build of this one. It's kind of a part match three, part rogue like strategy game, part narrative game, but also very confusing in a lot of ways. So do expect us to talk more about it next week. PC only for this one. Finally, if you are hoping to play the upcoming Bond game at launch on the Switch 2, then

unfortunately you'll have to sit tight a little longer, it seems. I posted on Twitter recently saying, quote, "007 First Light comes to PlayStation, Xbox Series X, and PC on May 27th and Nintendo Switch 2 later this summer. we're excited to see players discovering James Bond's reimagined origin story, and we're looking forward to bringing you the best experience possible across all platforms." End quote. No reason was given as to why the Switch 2 version was delayed, but I think the answer is fairly obvious. Despite the Switch 2 being a sizable upgrade over the original Switch, it's clearly still a bit of a bottleneck for AAA games, requiring a lot more optimization work versus other consoles. But games like RE

Reququum and Pragmata proved that you can have highfidelity games running decently on it. So hopefully the extra time gets it to where it needs to be. So what came out last week? But one release we missed mentioning last week was the early access release of Morbid Metal, a new character action rogike developed by a new independent studio, Screen Juice, and published by Ubisoft of all publishers. The reception to this has been pretty good so far, so it looks like Ubi picked a good horse to back here while they sort of sort their own stuff out. It's got a very positive rating on Steam so far with 80% of reviews recommending it. The most helpful Steam review comes from Schroinger's left nut, which I guess

could also be his right nut. That's the thing about Anyway, shout outs to that person. He said, quote, "It's like someone said, "What if DFC but robots, better camera, and Returnal's movement and progression right out of the gate for the price of a crunch wrap supreme and a Baja Blast? Welcome back, Rogike fans." End quote. Got to say that sounds pretty damn enticing. A big thank you to Schroingers Left Nut. Another Steam release was Soul Keto, which we previously featured as a radar pick. This strip back rogike entered 1.0 note last week and it seems to have maintained its source despite a few contentious issues like new UI elements and revamping its progression which brought about a reset for early access

players albeit with some compensation in the form of in-game currency. Recent reviews are mostly positive with 85% of them recommending it. Steam user Miggy Moment recommended it and said quote this game has source. It's got an excellent art style and the gameplay is addicting, perfect for quick runs between day-to-day stuff. The art of the game is what drew me in and thankfully the gameplay provided substance to the style. End quote. Tamashika was another one of our radar picks. This one landed in a very similar place at a very positive rating on Steam, 80% recommending it. Though common complaints include some friction with the whole one level per day thing and the slightly higher cost of entry.

Regardless, Steam user Z101 sums it up nicely by saying, quote, "It's like Post Void, but twice as likely to give you an epileptic seizure." End quote. Dosa Divas is one we've been hanging out for. This is the food themed RPG with both an active turn-based combat system and cooking mechanics. And this one comes from the developers of Thirsty Suitor. This has landed on Open Critic with a strong 78 with reviews generally framing it as short and sweet. Could have some smaller RPGs as well as the life destroying ones. I think Wellplayed gave this one 8.5 saying, quote, "With its

fusion of heartfelt narrative, giant robot combat, and flexible flavor-driven cooking system, Dosa Divas serves up a hearty genre mashup that more than lives up to its ambitious premise. It's a beautifully crafted journey where the only thing more satisfying than the snappy dialogue and deep character bonds is the undeniable joy of saving the world one home-cooked meal at a time." End quote. Moving on to mouse pi for hire now, though. FPS for the 1930s cartoon aesthetic, and it seems like there was some substance to go with all that style. There were a few outliers among the sway the reviews, but it's

landed at a strong 83 on Open Critic regardless, with most of the criticisms leveled at its story. Here's PC Gamer who gave it an 86, saying, quote, "You might expect a game that goes all in on its noir visual aesthetic to make a strong point of its story. I certainly wouldn't call it a weakness, but rather a victory of premise over plot. The social commentary running through each case feels reheated, and the dialogues lacking that Raymond Chandler wit, but the slimy politicians, jaded film stars, and bizarro cultists of Mouseberg are sharply drawn in every sense. In the end, it's the gunplay, the detective downtime and the world building that elevate this choice cut of detective

noir, not the who done it aspect, and I'm absolutely fine with that." End quote. Another highly anticipated noir infused game is that replace the sidescrolling cyberpunk action game. This one's also landed on a strong open critic average of 79 at the time of writing with a slightly wider spread overall as people tried to reconcile a relatively simple gameplay with a strong style and narrative. Techto was one that fell on the lower than average side of the fence with a 6.5 out of 10 saying quote replaced art style is simply incredible to look at and its narrative concerning AI and Mega Corpse feels original rather than derivative. Even

so, it's a very slow burn with some pretty basic platforming and mundane Simon says style combat. End quote. On the other hand, the gamer landed at a four out of five, saying, quote, "The excitement for me didn't really come from rudimentary platforming or repetitive combat scenarios, but instead, I was excited by the prospect of seeing more of its compelling dystopia and how the protagonist reach was going to navigate the irrational world of emotions and selflessness before him, the defining strength of Replace besides the sunny visuals lies in its cultural commentary." End quote. A quick check in on Last Flag, the competitive spin on Capture the Flag from a new indie studio formed by the Imagined Dragons frontman. At the time

of writing, this has only been out for about half a day, but it is sitting at a mixed sentiment with only about 80 reviews. Taking the spread of talking points into account though, the positive reviews talk about its art style, fun gameplay, low price point, and lack of inapp transactions, while the negatives are largely focused on a small nine character roster, two maps, and a single game mode. Surely though, the bigger concern has got to be the player count since there aren't many people picking this up. And you kind of need people to play a game like this for it to work. So hopefully those numbers improve pretty soon. Tough to put Last Flag up against this next one though. During the triple

eye initiative, an early access release date was announced for Windrose, the pirate themed survival game, also known as What If Skull and Bones was good. This one looked really nice in the trailers, and it certainly landed with a splash. It's also just come out at the time of writing, and it's received a very positive reception with over 1,700 reviews, not to mention a peak concurrent player count of nearly 70,000 people, which is kind of crazy. Here's Steam user Mava, who's already put 10 hours into this thing, saying, quote, "A little Valheim and a little Enshrouded and maybe a little Soul Mask/C Conan

with NPC automation with plenty of its own identity all wrapped in a gorgeous pirate flag. If you're a fan of survival games like those previously mentioned, you'll find yourself right at home here. If you're a fan of the age of piracy, well, then you're simply going to adore it." End quote. And finally, we'll check in on Nintendo's latest Tamodachi Life, which is certainly the weirdest thing they've put out in the last few years. Yes, even weirder than Drag X Drive. What the hell was that? Anyway, let's not get sidetracked. Toddachi Life hit a strong 78 on Open Critic with almost every reviewer making clear that while this certainly isn't a game for

everyone, it has got a certain something that might surprise those who otherwise might not be into this sort of thing. Nintendo was sort of hamstrung as chances of success, however, by restricting your ability to share screenshots and clips through the native share tools. A point made by IGN when they score the game 7 out of 10, saying, quote, "Toachi Life, Living the Dream is a deeply funny and equally personal civilization simulator fueled by your creativity. the ridiculous sharing restrictions put a dark cloud over its otherwise delightful paradise. End quote. On our team, Ed had the chance to live with this one for the last few weeks, and from the sounds of things,

he's been thoroughly enjoying it, but Flags again, that is definitely not one for everyone. Here's what he had to say. Quote, "There's a reason why Tomodachi Life is a cult series. It's a sim for a very specific kind of person that has the patience, creativity, and inclination to orchestrate their own weird characters and situations while watching them from afar." Exactly like that sickos.jpeg meme. It's for that kind of person who spent way too long in the Sims setting up messed up narratives and trapping Sims in pools. Though, you have a lot less control than that and a lot less of a game than that. Think of it more like an autonomous sandbox that you spend time setting up and check back

in on regularly, like a snackable TV show. It's also, weirdly enough, a great game for families and sharehouses. If you're not one to spend time creating your own little universe of original characters or ones based on your favorite anime or whatever, basing them all on real life people and watching how they do or don't act like their real selves, how their relationships develop, what kind of bizarre situations they get themselves into is a lot of fun. Definitely one of the major appeals of Tomodachi Life. If you fall into either or both of these categories, you'll get a kick out of it. But if you're not, then I reckon your enjoyment will largely come from the slew of unhinged

videos and screenshots that are about to hit social media over the next couple of weeks. End quote. So, what's coming out this week? Well, the big one for this week is Pragmata, the latest one from Capcom, which fuses thirdp person shooting with a kind of puzzle action hybrid gameplay that'll have you mentally juggling a hell of a lot as you come up against a slew of different enemies requiring different approaches for each. It should have come out the same day as the show this week, Friday the 17th of April. Though, reviews for this one actually dropped earlier this week, which was a clear sign of confidence. It hit a mighty 87 on Open Critic, which marks the third Capcom title this year after Resident Evil

Reququum and Monster Hunter Stories 3 to safely land in the 85 and above territory. GameSpot gave this one a 9 out of 10, saying, quote, "Pragmata is the total package, a blend of tense and satisfying combat, elevated by deep underlying mechanics and strategic choices, all in service of telling an impactful tale that spends time nurturing the relationship between its memorable characters. It's one of my unexpected surprises of 2026 so far and an early shoein for one of my favorites of the year." End quote. I also reviewed this one link below the like button and a perfect reminder to hit the like button. Thank you very much. I like this. I liked it quite a bit. I didn't love it, but it stunning visuals, serviceable story, and novel

puzzle-based combat made for a really nice 10-hour playthrough, and I did find myself going back to scoop up additional collectibles just because I felt like doing so. I think that the reviews you're seeing are maybe overhyping it just a little bit. So, I think it's important to go in with the right expectations. Expect a solid, well-made, enjoyable game, but not one that's likely to change your life or anything. Though, I absolutely think the Capcom could do a lot with this premise in the sequel, and I very much hope this sells enough to kickstart a new franchise. Those are my brief thoughts though. And like I said, if you want the full rundown, then be sure to check out the

review below the like button. Jumping over to next week now, Monday, April 20th, that's 420. Just to provide some context for this next release, we've got Jay and Silent Bob, Chronic Blood Punch coming out. Based on the characters from the Kevin Smith films, which I know will be relevant to this viewership, because y'all are millennials. Don't deny it. I can see it in my demographics dashboard. This beat him up has been in development since 2016, if you can believe it. During which time it also had a successful crowdfunding campaign. Will it live up to the expectations? Look, these things rarely do, but it is sure to provide a sense of closure at the

very least. We'll check back in on it next week. It's coming to all platforms. On Tuesday, April 21st, we've got a title we thought was initially a joke, but it's definitely real. And furthermore, it'll probably sell like a million copies. It's Vampire Crawlers: The Turbo Wild Card from Vampire Survivors. Now, this plays nothing like Vampire Survivors. It is instead a turn-based dungeon crawling deck builder with roglike elements, but it shares the same sprites and universe, which is essentially a barely disguised old school Castlevania, but hey, they made the most of it. An outfit called Nosebleleed Interactive, who made an arcade management sim called Arcade Paradise, are behind this one,

developing it in partnership with Vampire Survivors dev Ponul. All platforms for this one. Here's an interesting one, actually. Tides of Tomorrow is the latest narrative game from an outfit called Digi Arcs, who made a choice and consequence game called Road 96. Tides of Tomorrow is a little different because your choices are built to affect the playthrough of other players who come after you. Though, it's still a single player game at heart. It all takes place on an ocean where humanity is living on floating cities and deals with a disease that is threatening to kill all living humans. I'm sure this won't just with a bunch of griefers ruining it for everyone. Right.

Right. Question mark. This one's out on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series on Wednesday, April 22nd. Also on Wednesday, Masters of Albon is coming out in early access. This is the new god game from godfather of god games himself Peter Molyneu. Yes, you might have forgotten but before Milo and the cube and fable Molyneu created this genre with populace and later black and white. He's called Masters of Albian and quote the culmination of my life's work end quote which can either be seen as a really hopeful and sincere statement as the designer starts to reach the age of 70 or just your typical Molyneu overhype. We'll check back in

next week to see which one it ends up being PC only for this one. And finally, on Thursday, April 23rd, we got the pleasure of being blessed with yet another game from Double Find Productions, their multiplayer brawler, Kiln. This is the one that sees you craft all sorts of pottery using a very involved creation function with pots and vases of different sizes being imbued with different abilities, which you then take into multiplayer battles. We had a bit of fun with this one during the open beta last weekend, but as always, your enjoyment of competitive games will depend on the player base. So, do get out there if Double Fine is your jam.

PC, PS5, and Xbox Series consoles for this one. All right, we've got quite the backlog of games we want to feature on this segment. But here's one that Austin has been hassling us to talk about for literally weeks now, so put this on your radar. This is Gunboat God, a really fun arcade shoot up from a solo developer by the name of Jansen Rad. And yes, I'm 100% sure that his surname is Rad. And if it's not, he really ought to legally change it. It's a chaotic naval themed physics-based shoot them up which has, as you can see, a very vibrant art style, some great animation work, and plenty of oomph. The kind of game that takes us back to the days of playing flash games on New Grounds. We have played this one at a few local

exhibitions here in Australia and loved it. And it's landed on Steam, PS5, and Xbox Series consoles just this week. It has less than a dozen reviews on Steam at the time of writing, though, but over 90% of them are positive. So, go and give the game some love if it looks like you might be into this. There's also a free demo still available just in case you need a taster if you do want to check it out. We've left a link to it over on our Steam curator page, which also has links to all of the other Put this on your radar stuff we've recently covered. I'll leave a link to all of that below the like button. Our third good story for the week comes courtesy of ABC's Cleveland affiliate. Police

were called out to a residence to do a welfare check on a 91year-old woman who is not responding to phone calls from her family. The woman who lived alone was part of an Are You okay program that allows police to enter her home so they can check on her well-being. When they got to her residence, they saw her car was parked in the garage, but she was still not responding to hailes. So, the officers entered the home. What they found next would make any gamer proud. We're here with her now. She's playing video games in her bedroom. Police say not just playing video games, but trying to beat her record level, officers say in the process, missing those attempts to check in on her, but we're told thankful police came out. 91

years old, ladies and gentlemen, sitting there not only gaming, but trying to beat a personal best like she's training for a speedrunning cop. But she is so locked in that she's not even responding when the police barge into her house. God bless you, anonymous 91year-old woman. You are still cool as [__] and you are giving us all something to aspire to. We thank you and I thank you for staying right through to the end of this show because like I said at the top, this ended up being a bigger one than we predicted. But that's how it goes sometimes. And we hope you enjoyed yourself. If you did, we'd love it if you could drop the video a like since that's the fuel that keeps us going in a

time when actual fuel is very expensive. Do be sure to subscribe and ding that notification bell as well if you haven't. Huge week of content next week. Can't talk about it yet cuz it's all under embargo, but plenty of exciting stuff going up on the channel. promise you, you will like it, so stay tuned. Okay, that's it from me. Thanks again for watching and a big thanks to this video sponsor, Raycon. This video is brought to you by Raycon and their essential open earbuds. They solve so many problems created by traditional earbuds. The biggest one for

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